The Woman with the Wallet (Costa Family #10)

Chapter Twenty-Five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Miko

“Place is dystopian,” Brio declared as we waited outside of the hotel for the fourth hour in a row.

We’d all been on stakeouts before.

But that didn’t mean we were immune to the boredom and frustration. It only took the first hour for us all to catch up with one another’s lives.

So then it was just… waiting.

Shifting in seats.

Complaining.

“Yeah. Feel like the place must be a sausage fest,” Nico said. “What woman would feel safe without at least one other human to hear her if she needed help?”

We’d seen three people coming and going so far.

All of them had been men.

“How much this going for a night?” Brio asked.

“Almost six hundred,” I told him.

“Six hundred. And no one to call to bring you a fresh towel or meal?”

“I think the place is for bragging rights only at this point,” I said. I’d scrolled their social media on my burner in the second hour of sitting around. Their account was tagged in endless pictures of the rooms that were surrounded with TV screens.

I imagined the only thing that happened in those rooms were men with their hands around their cocks and porn playing all around them.

“How’s he paying for this shit if he hasn’t unloaded the diamonds yet?” Nico asked.

“Probably running up his cards,” I said, shrugging. “Thinking he will pay ‘em off when he gets the cash. He—“

“Wait, got some movement,” Brio said, sitting up in the passenger seat. “That him?” he asked. “He’s limping.”

Sure enough, through the windows that took up nearly the whole front of the hotel, I could see a man exiting the elevator. There was a distinct lameness in his gait as his hand reached into his back pocket, pulling out a small box.

His cigarettes.

Not even a bullet in the leg could get in the way of his next smoke, it seemed.

All the better for us.

“Let’s hope he goes around the… yep,” Nico said, nodding. “Predictable.”

With that, he put the car into drive and took us down the side street Devon was moving toward, smoke curling around his body as he hunched forward in the cold night air.

“Get ready,” Nico said as he pulled just in front of Devon.

Brio and I flew out of the SUV.

Brio was faster than I was, clamping a hand over Devon’s mouth and wrestling him toward the car.

I jumped in the back, reaching for Devon and dragging him in.

Brio jumped in the other side, grabbing his gun, and bringing down the heel of the gun into Devon’s head. The position was just right, making the bastard go still in an instant.

“He won’t be out long,” I said as his dead weight settled half on me.

“Doesn’t need to be,” Brio said, shrugging. “Besides, I can hit ‘em again. What’s a little concussion when he’s gonna be dead soon anyway?”

He had a point.

“Though, doesn’t seem like this idiot got treatment for his leg,” Brio went on, inspecting the red stain seeping through Devon’s jeans and onto Brio’s leg. “Or even did much for it himself. If we gave ‘em a few days, he’d probably die in that creepy-ass hotel.”

“I don’t want to waste a couple of days,” I said as Nico turned the car into a narrow alley between buildings.

I wasn’t sure if it was happenstance or by design that the lights had all been knocked out.

“Give me a second,” Nico said as Devon started to grumble and come to.

Nico climbed out, and I turned to watch out the back window as he went to the end of the alley and slid a privacy fence across the opening before walking back toward us.

“See that wall?” Brio asked, jerking his chin out of my window.

“Yeah.”

“There are stairs on the other side. Door is already unlocked. Just push with your shoulder. We gotta do this quick,” he went on as Devon started to struggle.

Nico was at my door then, pulling it open so I could slide out, grabbing Devon’s upper body as I went.

Brio crawled across the seat while trying to grab Devon’s kicking legs. He was just getting to his feet when Devon landed a kick to his jaw, making a dark look creep across Brio’s face as he leaned down to grab the legs, yanking them at an angle that made his thigh twist.

A howl of pain may have escaped him, but Nico chose that exact second to literally slap a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

“You need me?” he asked as we wrangled Devon toward the steps.

“Nah. We got this,” I told him, knowing the violence wasn’t Nico’s favorite part of the life.

“Might wanna detail the backseat while you wait,” Brio added.

With that, we struggled down the stairs.

I threw my shoulder into the door when we reached it. It groaned open as we moved inside.

Brio was the first to drop Devon, moving around me to slip a bar across the door, then secure several locks.

“You wanna question him?” Brio asked.

Honestly, like Nico, the violence wasn’t something I got off on like Brio did. I didn’t enjoy beating the shit out of people, let alone resorting to torture.

But sometimes pain came in handy.

Like getting the information for the location of the diamonds from Devon, so I didn’t waste hours and possibly drop DNA all over his hotel room.

“Gotta know where the diamonds are,” I told Brio as he grabbed Devon’s legs again and dragged him to the center of the room. Where, I shit you not, he shackled him to some ancient-looking, heavy chains. Then he moved across the room to where the chain was on some sort of lever system and started to lift Devon off the ground by his wrists.

He didn’t dangle him completely off the ground, but Devon was high enough that it was just his tippy toes that brushed the cement floor. His shoulders were likely screaming from the strain. But it was really the least of his worries when he was facing someone like Brio.

“Hold on,” I said, walking up to Devon and fishing in his pocket until I found the hotel keycard, then tucked it into my pocket.

“So, you and me, we’re gonna have a little talk,” Brio said, pacing around Devon like a cat stalking its prey. “And each time you try to lie to me, it’s gonna hurt. But this,” he said, suddenly cocking back to land a blow to Devon’s jaw so hard that he turned in half a circle from his chains, “is for kicking me before.”

Devon was panting hard.

But it wasn’t panic in his bright blue eyes.

No, it was rage.

I knew right then that Brio was going to have his work cut out for him.

“Oh, shit, man, I’m forgetting my manners,” Brio said, pressing a hand to his chest in apology as he half-turned to me. “You wanna have fun first?”

“I’ll have my fun once we get the information we need.”

“Cool, cool. Just you and me then,” Brio said with the creepiest fucking smirk as he turned back to Devon. “So, give me a nod if you’re ready to talk.” Devon just glared back. “I know. Everyone starts off tough,” Brio said, nodding. “Just makes it more fun for me.”

The pain started then.

I’d heard the stories about Brio’s legendary violence. The way he seemed to get a charge from putting the hurt on someone. How inventive he could get in his torture.

Hearing about it and seeing it firsthand were wildly different, though.

I’d beaten men to bloody pulps before. Both in self-defense and to enforce for the Family.

I’d never once enjoyed it.

But even with a blood-spattered face, Brio was grinning like a fucking demon.

“Oh, now you wanna talk?” Brio asked, sounding disappointed. “But I was just gonna start on your toenails. Damn. Alright. Well. Here we go,” he said, peeling back the tape that was just barely hanging on with how much sweat, spit, tears, and blood were soaking Devon’s face. “So, where are the diamonds, man?”

“In… my… cigarette… carton…”

“Smoking’s a nasty habit, man. Just think, you’d live through the night if you didn’t step outside to smoke.”

Devon had clearly been holding out hope that he might walk away from this. But those words had the cold dread filling his eyes.

For the first time, I understood the enjoyment Brio felt at someone else’s fear and pain.

Because I could just imagine the dread he’d made Max feel as he straddled her on her own bed, as his hands closed around her throat, as he squeezed until her lungs burned.

I pushed away from the wall, reaching for my gun.

Sure, strangling him would be more poetic.

But I wanted this over.

It had already been a long as fuck day.

And there was still the body to deal with when this was done.

“I’d have let you live if you didn’t put your hands on my girl. Twice,” I told him, watching as understanding dawned on him. “No one had to get hurt or die for this shit,” I added, thinking of Lil and Henry. Of what he’d almost done to Chuck. “But now you do.”

I lifted the gun.

Aimed.

Shot.

And it was finally over.

“Why don’t you go take a trip to the hotel?” Brio suggested, happy to start the cleanup by himself. “Then go home. I can handle the body. Know a place upstate—“

“Actually, Brio, you wouldn’t happen to have a live animal trap, would you?” I asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Figure we might kill two birds with one stone tonight. Get my girl safe once and for all… and get her a little present.”

Sure, I would be a lot later getting back to Max than I planned.

But I was pretty sure she would forgive me once she knew why…